I can only trust that my instructors are honest, fundamentally good people who wouldn't rip me off.

A lot of people have this attitude towards their instructors, it's the proper attitude to have but it's also the way the frauds are able to succeed.

Just looking at the website for your dojo, looks like a pretty standard commercial karate school that's tossed in some "kenjutsu" to make a few extra bucks. Judging by the photos and descriptions they've got no connection to anything legit. In all likelihood they learned it from books. If you're happy training there, more power to you, but there's much better instruction available in the UK.

[Oxford UK] So how full of it are these guys?

Walking through Oxford on Saturday got handed a flyer for these guys, so exactly how rubbish are these guys? It looks kinda like a happy clappy make it up as we go along but pretend to be "traditional" cult.

I got one of their flyers at work months ago. The dude who dropped the flyers off was driving a big 4-wheel drive with the club logo slathered all over it.

Just looked like standard gendai-budo mishmash of air-punching karate and aikido with a dollop of corny cinematic zen stirred in.

I can't recall it word for word but I specifically remember the leaflet giving textbook bullshido justifications why they don't compete. I don't think there's an investigation to do because I don't see them making specific claims of being able to beat people in any recognisable form of competition and they're not claiming supernatural powers they could be called out on.

This was what most martial arts classes I came across as a teenager in the late 80s/early 90s were like.

My favourite part has to be the background pic for this page - none of the punchers seems to be very consistent in terms of technique (the guy on the bottom right being the most, uh, unique), but all of the people being "punched" are extremely uniform in the angle that they all lean back, and the angle that they've thrown back their heads.